You’re in for a treat today because today we are in discussion with Tracy Timm, who is an amazing coach within my coaching universe. Tracy talks about how her own lack of career clarity and inability to find resources that led her to believe if she could find her own perfect career niche, she could also help other people find their career their fit.

In today’s episode you will learn -

Tracy’s struggle in her corporate career.

• Her opinion on the current generation being victim to box checking. Excelling at everything we do and the childhood rat race of perform, perform, perform.
• Attending Yale and discovering through studying psychology that she was passionate about people.
• Her journey of solving the problem of not fitting into the quintessential career choice boxes that were available at Yale through formulating a proven strategy to help a wider audience.
• Coming to the realization that she wanted to choose coaching as a full-time career and not only because she has been through the similar problems.
• Her insights into how you do not have to go into a full-time job to reaffirm your chosen career.
• The experience she had at her first coaching job and how she sustained herself financially while further exploring the industry.
• Tracy discusses how she let all the noise of opinions affect her decisions, where things did not turn out as she had anticipated. This was the final sign she needed to enter the coaching space.
• How she was able to make meaningfully different choices based on what she learnt from her failures.
• Being true to yourself and not being caught up in the struggle of competing with people in your market.
• The various iterations of her business models, the learnings that led to her creating a digital program and building her business through different strategies.
• Learning that you can deploy the information passively. There is so much power in accountability, discovery and process that you must go through together.
• For aspiring coaches, your goal should be consistent accountable revenues, she also explains how to achieve them.
• She advises future coaches on the importance of realising what you want to do in coaching and how you would prefer building your business model around it.

Tracy shares her insights on procuring the first few clients -

1. Work with people in the coaching space and learn how good coaching conversations are structured.
2. Tracy endorses the idea of getting a coach yourself in the initial stages.
3. Tactical part of getting clients takes time. She encourages aspiring coaches to do intensive research and start dialogues from other people. Some of these conversations can potentially become networks that got her business.
4. Start discussions with people, be genuinely interested and ask the right questions.
5. Remain open to changing business models, it will evolve over time.
6. Finding your niche.
7. Use LinkedIn, it is the largest CRM system out there. You can find whoever you want to serve on there.

The lessons she learned in the coaching business -

1. Effective coaches need to be good listeners.
2. Tactfully present information that resonates with the targeted customers.
3. Learning how to build a business as you coach simultaneously.

Tracy shares her experience with Geeta Nadkarni’s business development training “Impact with Influence”, defining her guide in the following three steps –

• Clarify - Who are you serving, lay out the demographics and identify your ideal customer avatar.
• Simplify - How you deliver outcomes to your ideal customer?
• Amplify - Publicise your services and what value you are offering?

To find out more about Tracy and connect with her visit her website where you can also learn about her certified coaching, retreats and schedule a phone call with her.

If you'd like to become a career coach, or even just explore if it's right for you, check out How to Be a Career Coach and find the help you need.

Check out the Ultimate Guide to Becoming a Career Coach!